Euthenasia

“The temptation grows to have recourse to euthanasia, that is, to take control of death and bring it about before its time, ‘gently’ ending one’s own life or the life of others. In reality what might seem logical and humane, when looked at more closely is seen to be senseless and inhumane. Here we are faced with one of the more alarming symptoms of the ‘culture of death,’ which is advancing above all in prosperous societies, marked by an attitude of excessive preoccupation with efficiency, and which sees the growing number of elderly and disabled people as intolerable and too burdensome. These people are very often isolated by their families and by society, which are organized almost exclusively on the basis of criteria of productive efficiency, according to which a hopelessly impaired life no longer has any value.”

-Pope John Paul II

Loss and Growth

"We don't like to dwell on our losses, but our whole lives are filled with losses, endless losses. And every time there are losses there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression, and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper. The question is not how to avoid loss and make it not happen, but how to choose it as a passage, as an exodus to greater life and freedom."
Henri Nouwen

Loss

"Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
Matthew 10:39

Grace

It is grace that forms the void inside of us and it is grace alone that can fill the void.
Simone Weil

God of ecstacy

“This ‘supreme’ and ‘surpassing’ reality by which the human being is transformed and given a new ultimate purpose is none other than the strange God who is powerful enough to become powerless, great enough to become small…. The Incarnation is the surest sign that God is best described as ecstacy.”
Robert Barron

The Best Things

The best things cannot be talked about.
The second best things are usually misunderstood because we are using images and metaphors to point towards the first.
So we spend most of our lives talking about the third best things because we need to talk and we long to be understood.
Richard Rohr

Busyness

In our culture, we suffer from, among other things, a glut of words, a glut of experiences, and, yes, a glut of tapes, books, and ideas. When we have too many words, we tend not to value them, even if they might contain life for us. We find it hard to be a disciple with a beginner’s mind because we’ve heard it all before, from many directions. We can’t absorb it all.”
Richard Rohr